The Golden Gays Review - Sunny Days at Shady Pines

I must begin with a confession: I did not watch The Golden Girls so much during its heyday in the late ’80s and early ’90s. I had a girlfriend who would climb on the phone at 11:00 each and every night to loudly cackle over re-runs with her best friend. (This is not the reason we no longer even speak. Should it be?) I did, however, recently burden my Tivo with several dozen episodes, which I faithfully watched back to back in the name of giving you a fair, and fully researched review.

The Golden Gays, playing now at the Meta Theatre on Melrose, is far more tribute to the highly awarded series than it is either spoof or musical. In fact, this play has also won two Broadway World Awards. I laughed out loud more at this two-hour performance than I did watching any of the TV episodes, now or then. Maybe it’s because this performance was live, or that I was in an audience, or maybe it was the drag, but it was still damn funny. And adorable.

The casting is absolutely perfect. I don’t know how far and wide they had to cast for these actors, but the four main characters are brilliant in their portrayals of Dorothy/Brian Rohan, Sophia/Marc Segal,Rose/Kevin Fabian and Blanche/Guy Windsor. They look like, sound like, move like the real thing even as, in the context of the storyline, they remain men. It didn’t even hurt that they often broke the fourth wall as it only made them more adorable and likable. I’m not kidding.

I need to take the edge off all this maudlin (ha!) gushing and kvetch about two things. I was not a fan of the writer’s therapeutic invention that got these characters into impersonating The Golden Girls in the first place. When I mentioned this to the pal who attended with me, she told me to put my inner Sophia in check and pull out my required suspension of disbelief. So it bothered me but did not bother her in the least. What did bother her was the abrupt moral lesson that was staple-gunned to the conclusion of the story. Again, bothered her. But me? Not so much. Different Strokes for different folks. Oops, that’s another story.

Don’t dilly dally getting your tickets: The Golden Gays is back in L.A. by popular demand with the emphasis on both “popular” and “demand.” You can find tickets online here. Call (424) 298-9100 or (323) 960-7770 to order by phone. For additional information, click here.